


Why Do I Keep Counting?

by NahaFlowers



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Abusive Parents, Angst, Blood and Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 10:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12274704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NahaFlowers/pseuds/NahaFlowers
Summary: James captures theMaria Aleynein order to kill Thomas's father, but Thomas gets there first.





	Why Do I Keep Counting?

_If I only knew the answer_

_I wouldn’t be bothering you, father_

(Why Do I Keep Counting - The Killers)

* * *

 

Thomas took advantage of whatever urgent commotion was happening outside to release himself from the bonds they had seen fit to keep him in, even though they made sure to lock the door behind them every time they left. _They_. They hadn’t seen fit to give Thomas their names (nor did they pay him the courtesy of using his) and so Thomas had to be content with pronouns. No matter. He was lucky enough that the captain had left a penknife on the desk, and it was the work of a moment to reach for it and cut himself free of the ropes he was bound with. The door, he thought, might prove more challenging.

But no – in his hurry, the captain had obviously forgotten to lock it. Thomas would have jumped for joy, if he wasn’t trying to conserve every last bit of energy he had to use on the task in front of him.

There was a man outside the door when Thomas exited, but he did not seem to recognise him, not as the madman from Bedlam, anyway. All the better for him.

“Pirates!” exclaimed the man, and Thomas marvelled distantly at the absolute fear in the man’s voice. What a thing, he thought, admiringly. To still be able to fear such things. To have the energy for that strength of emotion. Thomas thought that it must have been close to a year since he had been capable of feeling anything so powerful. It sapped what little energy they allowed him to leave with.

Still, pirates. That was something, he thought. Perhaps they would take him to Nassau. Or perhaps they would kill him. It didn’t seem to matter all that much to Thomas at the moment.

No, what mattered, he reminded himself, was the task at his hand.

His father.

He hadn’t bothered visiting Thomas for the entire voyage – and if they were in pirate hunting grounds, then they must be nearing America – but Thomas knew he was aboard. Had overheard them talking, the fear and submission in their voices that seemed to be present whenever his father was around, which would have told him he was here even he had not heard it directly. But where?

“You there,” he said to a man standing near him. A sailor, Thomas decided, a member of the crew. James would have been able to tell him where he ranked, he was sure, but never mind that. The man looked up at him. “Where’s Lord Ashborne? I’ve been asked to protect him.”

The man took in his ragged clothes dubiously, but then shrugged. “Your funeral, mate,” he said. _Or his_ , thought Thomas. “He’s below-decks, in his cabin, with his lady friend. Down the stairs, end of the corridor,” he added.

“Thank you, friend,” said Thomas, and the man raised his eyebrows again. Before he could ask another question, however, Thomas was making his way, as quickly as possible, in the direction the man had indicated, barely wincing at the boom and crash of the pirates’ cannons firing upon their ship.

He tore down the corridor and ran headlong into the door, only to find it locked. He fiddled with the lock a moment and, to his great surprise and satisfaction, it clicked open. He pushed it, but it didn’t give. Obviously, Thomas thought, annoyed, they had barricaded it from the inside.

He pushed with all his might, but only succeeded in breaking out in a sweat. Wiping his forehead on what remained of his sleeve, he turned to the last possibility available to him (until the pirates got down here, at least).

“Father,” he called, “Father, it’s Thomas. Let me in. Please.”

Sounds of a muffled argument. A good minute of silence. And then, to Thomas’s relief, the sound of boxes and furniture being removed from the door.

A breath of hesitation before he pushed it open. _Try not to think about what you’re about to do_ , he told himself. _Just focus on doing it_. God, all right, this was it…

He pushed the door open.

“Well, get in boy, hurry up about it,” his father said, sitting in the corner. It was obvious he had not moved an inch to dismantle the barricade – that had been his so-called lady-friend. He probably hadn’t wanted to let him in, either.

The hatred Thomas felt towards him was shockingly strong, and he strode across the room, as if he were still a Lord, not a diminished shadow of his former self, and pressed the penknife to his father’s neck.

The woman, who had started to rebuild the barricade, let out a gasp.

“Lord Thomas, what are you doing? Don’t do this, sir, it’s not right.”

Thomas felt his blood boil. He was sick of the lot of them, telling him he was wrong, that his existence was wrong. He gathered the strength to say one thing, and one thing only, to the woman.

“Don’t barricade the door.” If nothing else, the pirates could finish his father off if he couldn’t do it himself.

“But- the pirates-”

“I SAID NO!” shouted Thomas, and it was the most emotion he had shown in over a year.

The woman backed away, very frightened.

His father looked at him, and his gaze was taunting. He was not afraid of Thomas, even when he had a knife pressed up against his neck. Even when Thomas had been afraid of him all his life.

Thomas wanted to make him afraid.

“You won’t do it,” said Alfred Hamilton, calmly, but with malice. “You _can’t_. All your high-minded _ideals_ and _principles_ won’t let you.”

Thomas spat on his own father’s face.

Alfred Hamilton looked shocked for a moment, and then mocking cruelty twisted his features again. “Is this what it’s come to Thomas? This is the only power you’ll ever have over me, and then you’ll be delivered to Georgia, and you’ll never have power again. You are to be enslaved, you know that? Peter probably fed you all sorts of nonsense about ideals and society. I think perhaps that Oglethorpe fellow believes them himself. But you know better, don’t you Thomas?” He smiled up at his son, and it was the coldest thing Thomas had ever seen. “After all,” he smirked, “you’ve never been _stupid_.”

Thomas pressed the knife in harder to his neck, so that drops of blood started to appear. He heard someone enter the room, and the woman screamed.

Thomas did not turn around. “Do what you like with me,” he said. “Just let me take care of him first.”

Whoever it was behind him said nothing, and Thomas took that as his cue to continue.

“Just tell me one thing, father. Just one thing. Did you _ever_ love me?”

Alfred Hamilton’s eyes darted from him to the stranger, starting to look panicked now, and Thomas pressed his advantage, as well as his knife. “It may be your only chance to save yourself,” he said. “But, you know, I’ll know if you’re lying.” He met his father’s eyes. He would know, his father knew that, at least.

Alfred Hamilton glared at Thomas. “No,” he said.

With a shriek of anguish, Thomas slit his father’s throat, and blood gushed out of the man, so much blood, and he curled up and wept over his father’s body.

Someone pulled him gently away, and Thomas had a fleeting impulse to resist, but found he couldn’t, his body sagging into the stranger’s arms.

“Thomas,” said the voice. “Thomas.”

Oh. Not a stranger.

“James?” said Thomas, raggedly, and James kissed the back of his neck in answer.

“It’s me, my love. I’m here.”

“James,” gasped Thomas, and he felt shudders start to wrack his body. “Oh God, James, get me out of here.”

“I will,” James whispered in his ear, and then hoisted him into his arms. He kicked the door open (the woman screamed again, and dear God would she _stop it_?) and carried Thomas up the stairs and onto the deck, where the battle was still raging.

“Captain!” said someone out of Thomas’s line of sight. “What are you doing?”

“Get out the way, Mr Gates!” James cried. “I’m going back to the _Walrus_.”

“But Captain!” the man apparently named Gates protested, but James ignored him, grunting and pushing past him, past a number of other men, until he reached the gangplank. He walked unsteadily back to his ship, and then, finally, thankfully, they were sequestered in his cabin. James set him down, with great gentleness, on his hammock.

Thomas curled up into himself, shudders and gasps that weren’t quite sobs still wracking his body, barely aware of his surroundings. He knew only that he was safe.

After a while, when his breathing had calmed down and he let out a dry sob only now and then, James said, “Thomas?” His voice was hesitant.

“James, you- you found me.” His voice was small, a weak pathetic thing, just like he was. He clenched his eyes shut, so he did not see the agonised expression that crossed James’s face.

“I didn’t know you were aboard that ship,” he admitted.

“But then- why-?” Surely it couldn’t just be coincidence? “Oh. My father.”

James nodded, looking sick. “Miranda received correspondence from a former maid of hers, who innocently revealed your father was travelling to the New World on the _Maria Aleyne_. She said nothing of you.”

“And?” Thomas prompted.

“And Miranda asked me to find him, and kill him, for what he did to you. Thomas, we- we thought you were dead.”

Thomas smiled humourlessly. “Unfortunately, I survived my stint in Bedlam. And got to my father first.”

“Yes,” said James evenly, although he looked pale. He seemed to be staring at Thomas, but not at his face – his eyes were roaming up and down, involuntarily, and Thomas looked down at himself, then immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Christ, James, I’m- I’m covered in his blood,” he said, and began frantically scratching at his skin, feeling it itch and burn from the ooze of his father’s blood, all over him. Coating him. His eyes widened. “I’ll never get it off!” He began to scratch harder and harder, clawing at his skin until he was sure he was going to leave scratches himself. James rushed to retrieve something, placed his hands on Thomas’s.

“Thomas, no, no, stop,” he said fearfully, bringing Thomas’s hands to his chest and kissing them. Thomas closed his eyes at the sight, trying not to be sick at his lover kissing his bloodstained hands. His breathing was coming in short sharp gasps, he realised, and his heart seemed to be stuttering in his chest. “It’s all right, I’ll wash it off, Thomas, I’ll wash it off.” James sounded nearly as panicked as Thomas was, which didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but a moment later there was a wet cool cloth on his skin.

Thomas nearly bit through his lip, forcibly reminded of the cold baths at Bedlam, but he reminded himself it was this or remain covered in his father’s blood for the rest of his days, and stayed quiet.

Too quiet, apparently, for when he opened his eyes again, James was looking at him worriedly.

Thomas tried for a smile, but it hurt, and James didn’t look the same, even though he did, and everything was wrong, even if it was all right now, it didn’t feel like it, and there wasn’t enough air in this room, but there was more than there had been in that dank dark cabin where he had murdered his father, so he gasped for some water.

James brought it to him without complaint or question, and Thomas hated how that small gesture of kindness surprised him. He drank the whole thing in several long gulps, keeping his eyes closed for a few moments after, and then handing the mug back to James.

“Did you hear him?” he asked, looking up at James, sizing him up. “Did you hear what he said?”

James was looking anywhere but at Thomas. “Yes.”

“He never loved me. My own father. He didn’t love me.”

“I know, Thomas.” James looked tiredly, timidly up at him.

“Not before Bedlam, and our plans for Nassau. Not before that dinner. Not when I was at university, or Eton, not even as a newborn fucking _babe_!” James winced. “HIS OWN SON! HE NEVER LOVED ME!” He broke off into sobs and James rushed forward to put his arms around him.

“I know, Thomas, I know. I’m sorry.”

Thomas let him be wrapped up in James’s arms, but only for a moment.

“You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?” he said, pulling away. He looked at James shrewdly, and James back away, as if scared. “For loving my father. For even entertaining, for a moment, that he could have loved me.” James was silent. “Tell me!”

James jumped. “Of course I don’t think you’re an idiot, Thomas,” he said in a shaky voice. “He-he’s your father. He _should_ have loved you.”

“And what about me? I still love him. Even after all that, even after I killed him, a part of me still loves him.” He knew, because it hurt, a knife in his heart, as if he had been stabbed as well as his father. The next sentence he uttered very quietly. “I think even his death hurt me, more than it hurt him.”

James was speechless. He approached the hammock and, when Thomas didn’t make any movement to the contrary, sat down next to him. Next, he hesitantly put a hand in his hair, started stroking. Thomas sighed and leaned into the touch.

“You’re free of him now, though,” James whispered. “You freed yourself of him.”

Thomas nodded, then shook his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be free of him,” he whispered. “In here,” he said, tapping his head.

James responded by lying down next to him and pulling him into his arms. “You will be,” he said, kissing his temple. “I promise. We’ll make a life for ourselves together, you, me and Miranda, like we always dreamed. And your father’s ghost will not be allowed to enter the walls of the house we build.”

That sounded rather wonderful, he thought, and he drifted off in James’s arms, dreaming of a house and a sunny garden, and James and Miranda at his side always.

**Author's Note:**

> Poor Thomas. I feel like this is angstier than I wanted it to be, but then Alfred Hamilton is a bastard, even in death. Comments are always appreciated and cherished. <3


End file.
